Fate's design
by RainbowElephant101
Summary: Do you believe in destiny? Can the meeting of a single person change your fate? Hinata doesn't believe in either yet her world is turned inside out and upside from just meeting one person.
1. Chapter 1

The shadows of a hood covered the top half of a pale face, worn converses tapped out a rhythmic beat. He sat on the library stairs, going unnoticed by the large crowd that rushed by only a few meters from him. Long slender fingers held a headphone to his ear and the other hand held the phone but the darting eyes scanning the faces of the crowd suggested that music was the last thing on his mind. He stood with cat-like grace at the appearance of a girl, who was running wildly across the packed square, pushing against the flow of traffic. A smile tugged at his lips, his joy at finding his prize seemed endless. Dropping the phone on the steps he abandoned the useless thing, jumping the steps to stalk his prey. He held his hand out before him, fingers splayed. Time slowing around him till it came to a complete stop. Just as he was a few inches away from touching her, the teen noticed a blur rushing through the crowd, undoing his hold on time. He started to run himself, fearing the approaching stranger. This stranger seemed different from the rest.

The other, now slowing down, cast a glance at the girl who had stopped at the traffic lights. He pulled the hood of his own jacket up, covering his face. Alarm spread through the crowd as the young lady started to walk again, a speeding black bike was about to hit her head on. He grabbed the girl's hand when she stepped off the pavement, pulling her back so that she narrowly missed the speeding bike. He tugged her into his embrace only holding her for a second. "Watch where you're walking," he whispered, lips an inch from her ear. He could feel her shiver as her hand was still in his. He released her quickly, turning away when she whipped round to thank him, but she only caught a glimpse of his back. Being shoved along by the crowd, she gave up setting off to work.


	2. Chapter 2

Tugging at the frayed edge of a jumper, she apologised once more to her employer for her tardiness and retreated behind a desk. Starting up a computer, she hid her face behind papers as her boss walked over to face her desk.

"Hon it is okay for you to be late once in a while, you're here all hours of the day and you are always working, there was no need for you to apologise," he said, not a hint of anger or disappointment tinting his voice. She let the papers drop, revealing pink cheeks and nodded. She grabbed a blank sheet of paper and grey lead after his retreat, sketching what she remembered of that man. Her job was to find missing people, a private company with no connection to the police. Opening up a program, she rested her slender fingertips on the keys. She had never thought of using this for personal reasons, of course when she had developed the program it never occurred to her that she might want to find someone some day. She quickly typed in the name of the street corner she was on and jabbed the enter button before she could change her mind.

The screen came up with a list of all camera's covering that area, she clicked on one knowing it to be the one that was situated directly opposite that corner, giving her the best chance of seeing his face. Copying the recordings, Hinata saved it to a USB, hastily shoving it and the picture into a draw in her desk. Getting up to inspect the in-tray, she wrestled a yellow coffee stained folder from the bottom of the pile. It contained a picture of a boy about six years old, she remembered the day when the distraught mother came bursting through the doors in tears. It was heart breaking, he had been missing for three days and she had come here because the police couldn't do anything about it. She set the file down and withdrew a sketch pad redrawing the face from the family photo. Hinata set aside the sketch pad, going back to her program typing in the name of his street to find camera's. She dove into her work vigorously, forgetting about the man that saved her.


	3. Chapter 3

Picking up a flat smooth stone, he threw it across the lake watching as it skipped over the water. It only took one second of not watching and they found her, whoever she was. He abandoned the ageless past time and steeled his resolve of going into the office building, her office building. Grabbing the messenger bag he left carelessly on a park bench, and crossed the grassy expanse to the door. The man who answered the door greeted him with a tired voice, "Welcome to lost connections, can we help you with anything?"

"I'm looking for a woman with shoulder length dark hair, I believe she works here." The man looked surprised and pointed out the doorway of an open office. He saluted him lazily and thanked him for the help, venturing slowly to the office. The girl sitting behind the desk, frantically typing, looked rather plain, she was anything but that. She wore an old grey jumper two sizes too big, dark skinny jeans with ends tucked into doc martins. Her dark hair was being held in a bun by various pens and pencils, bangs framed her heart-shaped face contrasting with white skin. She was curvy and well endowed but was trying desperately to hide it behind baggy clothes and she had moonstone pupil-less eyes, which were unique. With a pen clenched between her teeth and nose scrunched up in concentration she had failed to notice the man's arrival. It didn't surprise him at all. He cleared his throat in hopes of catching her attention. The small girl jumped, shocked by the appearance of the random stranger before her.

"Thank you," she said jumping from her seat to bow, recognising him as the man from this morning. He stood back shocked by her actions.

"Hn," he muttered, unsure of what to say now that he had met her. Rifling through his messenger bag, he yanked out a black drawing book and passed it to the woman.

"You dropped this on your way to work," he said thrusting it at her, head turned away.

"Oh." she exclaimed, checking her own bag which was more like a folder. "Again thank you, I didn't even realise I dropped this, I wonder?" she started talking to herself quietly as he placed it in her hands. Truth be told she hadn't dropped it, he had used a little slight of hand to acquire her book.

"By the way I'm Hinata," she smiled sweetly at him, holding out a hand. He looked at her warily before gripping it firmly.

"Sasuke, so what is this place?" he muttered, curiosity winning over him he peered at one of the open files on her desk.

"It's a missing persons agency, I look for people who the police can't find, or I help find an adopted child's real parents and such." He nodded, suddenly understanding what the man was talking about when he said lost connections. Sasuke picked up the open file of a report on a teenager, a foreigner.

"He's been missing for just over a month the police have tried to find him but they think he fled the country and have labeled it a cold case, I've been through all the camera footage at all the boarders and what, even went down to a few cruise liners with his picture but it just seems hopeless," she said, hitting her desk with balled fists. Shin Ichiru, Sasuke remembered him clearly he had been a friend of sorts.

"Shin committed suicide just after he went missing," he murmured, Hinata grabbed at his arm looking rather desperate, "I was there, he was a friend of mine, I hadn't realised that it was never reported. I wasn't the only person there, he was scared for his life accidentally messed up with some gangs plans, I went over to his place with a friend of mine, he led us down to the canal behind his flat and shot himself in the head." Keeping her grip on his arm, she grabbed the phone ringing the police station. There was a quiver to her voice as she spoke quietly and quickly. Releasing her tense grip, she called another number, most likely the number of his grandfather, who was his last living relative, and reported her new findings with a possibility it might not be true. He stayed as she talked to the grieving man, and as she packed up the file and wrote something on it. Sasuke watched as she started to cry when she placed it into a box, hands trembling too much that she couldn't even replace it. Standing behind her, he grabbed the box shoving it onto its place atop the filing cabinet.

"Why don't we go for lunch, you're stressed out to the max," he said, still standing close behind her. Placing a hand on her shoulder, Sasuke walked her away from the filing cabinet.

"Oh," she mumbled numbly, "Okay, umm Kakashi I'm going out for lunch," she called, grabbing her coat. They heard a mumbled reply, he took it as a yes and lead her out of the building.


End file.
